December’s Employment Report: Three-Fifths Of New Jobs Went To Immigrants

This December jobs number—a gain of 200,000 according to survey of business establishments—was hailed as a sign that the economic recovery has finally built up a head of steam. The downtick in unemployment, to 8.5% from November’s revised 8.7%, added to the euphoria gripping the MSM.

Reality check, please.

Current immigration policy brings in around 100,000 new workers each month. This means that as much as half of December’s job gain may have accrued to people who just arrived in the country that month—including illegal aliens.

Even at December’s elevated job creation rate, it would take about seven more years—until around 2019—to absorb workers who lost jobs as well as new entrants into the labor force. We are 10 million jobs shy of where we need to be.

The “other” employment survey, of households rather than businesses, reported a gain of 176,000 jobs in December. At this rate it would take eight years to regain pre-Great Recession unemployment rates.